US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees

Interesting. The deregulation of airlines is already a case study of how deregulation tends to reduce competition and hurt consumers.

I suppose we’ve just given up on the concept of trying to do anything but nakedly extract profit at any cost. You’d think shareholders would be pro-competition in the end, though—I certainly would prefer that.

Edit: I mean short-term profits. As a shareholder I would prefer long-term profits via competition and diversification.

What are you talking about overall, deregulation of routes has not been bad for consumers. The opposite actually.

It’s been a disaster. There are fewer routes, and flying is miserable, and getting worse every year. Crashes are way up this year.

Airlines profits are basically zero per ticket. Adding $10 per trip would be some sort of fantasy land windfall for the shareholders.

Deregulation badly broke this industry.

This is pretty much false. If you compare inflation adjusted cost you now get a far better service for the same price, and you get access at a price that literally wasn't possible before.

> and flying is miserable

It isn't. I have flowing with budget airlines in Europe and its, basically fine. Not luxury but really its incredibly value.

On the same price as you did before, you now get luxury.

> Crashes are way up this year.

What the fuck does 'this year' have to do with it when we are talking about something that happened in around the 1980s.

Total safety is up massively, and per passenger safety is up by an absurd amount.

Any counter-argument to this is literally not credible.

> Airlines profits are basically zero per ticket.

So capitalism works? Not sure what your point is.

> Deregulation badly broke this industry.

Based on what?